The 2022 edition of the Dutch Grass Guide, an overview of the best sports and recreational grasses on offer, also includes a list with tetraploid grasses.

The Grass Guide has been an overview of the very best of what Dutch cultivators have already been able to offer for many years. The selection criteria used are higher than those used elsewhere in Europe.

Grasses listed have been tested over a 3-year period, subjected to various tests and tested at various test stations. The main focus is the treading tolerance (for sports), and appearance and disease tolerance (for landscaping purposes). New varieties are only added when they can compete with the best grasses already listed. Grasses which score at the lower end are slowly phased out of the list.

Tetraploid grasses

As of this year, tetraploid grasses complement the list with the well-known meadow grasses, red fescues and hard fescues, sheep grass, common bent grass and white bent grass, as well as perennial rye grass diploid.

The varieties added should set the benchmark for future developments. Tetraploid varieties are characterized by having proportionally more cell content than cell wall. Because these varieties are necessarily different from the varieties that already appear in the Grass Guide, the decision was made to present this type of grass in a separate list. Their test results should not be compared one-on-one with those of the other varieties.

The Grass Guide is produced by Plantum, the trade association for the seed and young plants industry. Plantum works according to carefully drawn up protocols and in cooperation with partners. The testing and researching of grass was done by Wageningen University.

The new Grass Guide can be downloaded here for free.